Kirkepiscatoid

By thine Agony and Bloody Sweat; by thy Cross and Passion;
by thy precious Death and Burial; by thy glorious Resurrection
and Ascension; and by the Coming of the Holy Ghost,
Good Lord, deliver us.

You know, I’ll tell you what kind of puzzles me about a lot of the modern megachurches. You look around inside, and they appear more to be like performance halls, or auditoriums, and you may look all over the place and never see a cross. Somehow, in this modern push to embrace “feel good” Christianity, that “cross thing” never seems to be part of it. But I do not know how I could possibly embrace the full impact of a Resurrection theology if I did not spend some time thinking about that “beaten, scourged, ridiculed, nailed on a cross to die in an agonizing fashion like the scummiest of common criminals, all in the name of local politics,” part.

The human mind has a need to understand “both 180’s” in order to understand “the full 360.” That is just how we are wired. We can’t understand “hot” if we have never experienced “cold.” We can’t understand “joy” without knowing “despair.” We don’t appreciate “health” unless we have experienced “sickness.”

I have thought about many of the things in my own life that it was apparent that others sacrificed for me. The thing that made it special was I KNEW those people “gave up something in order to give to me.” I realize I have sacrificed for others. These are things, that, “if we’re doin’ it right,” and not doing it simply to feed some kind of weird martyr complex, if we are doing it from the best parts of our heart, these realizations become very profound because it drives home the total value of the gift.

I think sometimes about the O. Henry story “The Gift of the Magi,” where unbeknownst to each other, Jim sells his watch to buy Della a set of combs for her beautiful hair and Della has her long tresses cut off to buy Jim a watch chain.

“And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest.”

What ARE the greatest treasures of our houses? Have we ever taken inventory? Maybe this season is a time to ponder that.